YouTube’s 1B Plays Club is Changing Global Music Culture [Mark Mulligan]

Despite the headlines, YouTube is still the top music destination in most of the world. That massive reach, particularly within the global Latin community, is changing the face of what it means to be a superstar.

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By Mark Mulligan of MIDiA and the Music Industry blog

"139 music videos have joined the 1 billion+ club, with a record 52 of those reaching one billion in 2018 alone"

Throughout 2018, while locked in a bitter war of words with rightsholders and creators over Article 13, YouTube quietly but dramatically expanded its role as the most powerful platform for creating global superstars. Nowhere is this better illustrated than with the YouTube music videos that have one billion streams or more. Not only did that number become bigger than ever in 2018, but the rate at which videos joined the 1bn+ club grew too. With music audiences fragmenting into algorithmically defined niches, YouTube continues to create truly global scale, mass market audiences.

As of Q1 2019, 139 music videos have joined the 1bn+ club, with a record 52 of those reaching one billion in 2018 alone. Not only are more YouTube videos joining the 1bn+ club, but they are getting there faster. On average, the 1bn+ videos released in 2018 got to that milestone ten times faster than those released at the start of the decade. But something very interesting is happening. Now that Latin America and US Hispanics are becoming a major constituency of the YouTube audience, Latin music videos are becoming the dominant part of the 1bn+ club. 63% of all 2018 videos that reached one billion streams were Latin music videos. YouTube is fast establishing itself as the consumption method of choice for Latin American audiences, and their listening behaviour is helping reshape the face of global music culture. In doing so, YouTube is helping to create a new generation of superstars – Latin superstars.

The artist with more 1bn+ videos than any other is Puerta Rican reggaetón and Latin trap artist Ozuna. He appears, either as the lead artist or as a featured artist, on eight, yes eight, videos with a billion streams or more, generating 10.1 billion streams to date. Although Anglo-centric artists fill three of the other top five spots, the tide is turning. In 2018 Latin 1bn+ videos generated three and a half times as many streams as Anglo-centric pop 1bn+ videos did.

There is another important, less obvious implication of the rise of Latin artists on YouTube. Latin America is now such a large part of the global streaming user base that it can generate hits that look global in scale, but in reality are only regional. India will start to do the same in 2019 and 2020. Record labels need to take a more nuanced approach to reading global-scale data trends. Just because a track breaks into Spotify’s Global 100 does not mean it is a global hit. In today’s world, global scale does not always mean global appeal.

Hip Hop, a tale of two streams

On audio streaming services Hip Hop is the ubiquitous genre, with its artists among the highest profile in the music industry. Spotify’s top three most streamed tracks of 2018 were all Hip Hop, while for Apple Music it made up the entire top seven. Among YouTube’s biggest tracks, however, Hip Hop is a minor player, with just 7% of 1bn+ videos. Demographics and geography play roles, but so do the respective relationships of the platforms with the major labels. The labels have more overall influence on Spotify and Apple Music’s programming, and additionally focus intense efforts on influencing their curated playlists (Spotify especially). Because Hip Hop is the priority genre for the major labels, all of whom have a strong US-centric worldview, Apple Music and Spotify end up with a strong Hip Hop skew. YouTube, however, is much less directly influenced by the record labels and relies on algorithms rather than programming to surface content for its users. YouTube’s genre mix thus more closely follows the tastes of its users, while Apple and Spotify’s more closely follow the priorities of the labels.

So, what does the rise of Latin artists and the under-performance of Hip Hop on YouTube say about today’s global music landscape? For me, it is this:

Anglo-centric artists have been the global superstars for decades because it took the marketing dollars of big, global record labels to make them. Now, large scale, regional audiences can have the same impact, by just listening.

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This post highlights just some of the data and findings that are going to be revealed in our forthcoming report: 1bn+ Music Videos: Latin Takeover

 If you are a MIDiA client and would like to get early access to the data email enquiries@midiaresearch.com

 If you want to learn more about how to become a MIDiA client, email stephen@midiaresearch.com